In David Cronenberg’s film Crimes of the Future, the plot unfolds in a hypothetical setting where humans no longer feel physical pain. Instead, they grow new, unknown organs that are then surgically removed. In this scenario, the body gets opened up in order to show, …
In her 2014 article Sex and Wheels for the Guardian, Zadie Smith revisits at J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash. Following on the writer’s perception of his work as the “first pornographic novel about technology”, Smith reflects on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s statement that language is better understood through its use, and not …
Stereotypes about modern Germany have long centered on the allure of the Autobahn and its license for limitless speed. In the exhibition “Wohin?” (Where to?), Young-jun Tak disseminates and rearranges this trope in order to dismantle the popular constructs of German national identity. [ read …
In 1946, Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) declared that conventional forms of representation had been exhausted. The following year, the artist founded Spatialism, a movement that dispensed with the traditional emphasis on illusion and illustration and instead condensed light, time, and space into a minimal gesture—in Fontana’s …
The spiral has been used as a symbol since the beginning of recorded culture. In Celtic mythologies, for instance, spirals denote elevation to higher levels of consciousness. Popular iconographies based on Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian mythology, on the other hand, combine the spiral with a straight …
‘Pick a card’ is the initial instruction visitors receive prior to entering Camilla Steinum’s immersive exhibition, ‘Symptom, Sympathy’, at Westfälischer Kunstverein. Further directions and notes are included in a booklet that serves as a manual for the show. Yet, before picking a card from the …
Regarding the artist’s working space, Daniel Buren once wrote that the studio frames the reality and truth of an artwork. In his text The Function of the Studio (1979) he suggested that the work of art ultimately belongs in the studio, because it is only …
A poster recalling 1970s giallo film aesthetics heralds the play CROCOPAZZO! by Leila Hekmat at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, but upon crossing the gallery’s threshold one realizes that the actual play was already performed in petit comité and what remains comprises the exhibition. CROCOPAZZO!’s structure is complex, as it includes a number …